He has done important studies on the history of the European working class: Who is Wolfgang Abendroth?

German lawyer and historian of social policy. He has done important studies on the history of the European working class. He was born on May 2, 1906, in Elberfeld, Germany. During his high school education in Frankfurt, he worked in an organization called Communist Youth. He entered the Frankfurt Law School in 1924. After finishing his studies in 1930, he was appointed to the Hechingen Magistrates' Court. In 1932 he began working at the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt. In 1933, he was dismissed and prohibited from practicing law, based on new laws passed by the Nazi Government on civil service.

Wolfgang Walter Arnulf Abendroth (2 May 1906 – 15 September 1985) was a socialist German jurist and political scientist. He was born in Elberfeld, now a part of Wuppertal in North Rhine-Westphalia. 

He went to Switzerland in 1934 and got his doctorate in Bern. He returned to Germany in 1935. He was arrested in 1937 and remained in Luckau Prison until 1941. In 1943, he was sent to work in Greece with troops formed from ex-convicts. During his stay on the island of Lemnos, he made contact with the Greek resistance movement. In 1944, when Germany began to withdraw its troops from Greece, he stayed in Lemnos and joined the Greek resistance organization called the National People's Liberation Army (ELAS). In the same year, he was arrested by the British and sent to Egypt along with many ELAS members. He was released in 1946 and returned to his country.

He started working at the Ministry of Justice in 1947. He was a member of the Supreme Court of Justice in the Soviet occupation zone. In the same year, he became a lecturer at Halle University. In 1948, he became a professor at the University of Leipzig and the University of Jena. In the same year, he contributed to the establishment of the School of Business, Politics, and Economics. The school aimed to train workers who would be recommended by the unions and those who could not complete their education due to the war. Unable to achieve these goals due to various obstacles, he transferred to the University of Marburg in 1950.

Throughout his life, Abendroth has been interested in the situation of the working class and has studied the history of the unions and the working class. He examined the German trade unions in his book Die Deutschen Gewerkschaften, published in 1954, and the history of the European working class in his book Sozialgeschichte der europeaischen Arbeiterbewegung, published in 1965. In addition, he has written books on private international law, the state structure of Germany, the German constitution, and the state of social democracy in Germany.